Page 15 of Possess Me at Midnight (Doomsday Brethren #4)

Chapter Thirteen

Sabelle

I collapse against the cool wood door, my heart hammering violently. Clutching the book to my chest like a shield, I will my racing pulse to slow.

Isdernus Rykard Called to me . Those ancient words still echo in my head, in my blood. Something desperate inside my chest yearns to Bind to him and seal us together for eternity.

It’s impossible. Bram would never condone such a mating—with good reason.

If I Bind to Ice, I lose Bram, my only family.

I lose my status, my future, along with everything I’ve been raised to value.

Even if magical law allowed status elevation through mating—which it doesn’t—Ice’s reputation would make me a political liability rather than an asset.

The centuries-old prejudice against the Deprived that Bram has worked so hard to change would destroy our effectiveness in this fight.

And Ice would gain a mate, but what would he lose?

The Doomsday Brethren might reject him for crossing Bram.

Then Ice and I would be outcasts, hunted by Mathias and distrusted by our kind.

But if I Renounce him? He loses the chance at a mate for eternity.

His instinct has supposedly chosen me, and he can never take it back.

He’ll potentially watch me mate with another while he remains forever alone, bound by a Call that can never be fulfilled.

The cruelty of it squeezes everything in my chest like a vise.

On the other hand, Ice’s challenge rings in my ears: You’re fully transitioned. An adult. Certainly, you won’t let your brother make your decisions for you. What do you want?

What do I want? As if that’s the only thing that matters.

Ice doesn’t understand. My choice of mate isn’t merely a personal decision.

It may be the only choice that saves our kind from annihilation.

With Mathias threatening the Council, my politically advantageous mating will secure crucial votes and solidify wavering alliances.

The Doomsday Brethren can fight Mathias’s armies, but without Bram’s political voice, I’m our only hope for a majority coalition on the Council against Mathias’s evil.

God, I wish my brother was awake and well so we could strategize together, as we often have.

But until he recovers, the burden falls to me alone.

Besides, I can’t feel the instinct that tells Ice I’m his mate.

Lust? Oh, my days, yes. I crave more of his hungry stare, his calloused palms sliding over my skin, his whispered growl of need in my ear…

Even now, I can feel him in the next room.

I still burn everywhere he put his hands on me.

The hot ache of need he incited refuses to stop throbbing between my legs.

It would be so easy to abandon caution, tell myself that my choice of a mate isn’t that relevant.

I’d be lying.

Countless lives hang in the balance. If I selfishly follow my heart and Mathias seizes control, how many will die? How many centuries of tyranny will follow because I chose love over peace?

And can I truly trust that Ice didn’t Call to me simply for revenge against my brother? A lifetime with the wizard would mean both a rift with Bram and exile from everything I’ve ever known.

Yet…when Ice kissed me and breathed “my princess” against my mouth, I forgot everything else. For those brief, searing moments, I felt more alive than in all my nearly eighty-five years. What if he’s sincere? What if I’m turning away the one wizard who will always put me before all else?

Maybe that’s wishful thinking. I barely know the man except that he’s hotheaded, impulsive, and dangerously male. But a liar? He seems so bluntly honest. I’m not even certain why he and Bram hate each other with such venom.

Exhaustion seeps into my bones. The clock on the little bedside table says it’s almost three a.m. Eight hours ago, I was eating dinner in my beloved home.

Now I’ll likely never see that house full of my treasured possessions and memories again.

God knows where the other Doomsday Brethren are, if they even escaped alive.

Can they warn the Council members of Mathias’s threat in time? Will anyone believe them? Take action?

I’m not hopeful.

I sit on the edge of the bed. In the low circle of light, I open the Doomsday Diary.

It looks innocuous. Small. Red leather cover worn smooth at the edges, binding cracked with age.

The symbol that represents Morgana Le Fay—the book’s evil creator—gleams dully while the pages, dry and brittle, whisper against my fingertips.

This unassuming tome hardly resembles an object capable of ending of the world.

Looks are deceiving.

With a quiver, I stare at the empty, yellowed pages.

Could I solve all my problems with a stroke of the pen?

It’s beyond tempting to write a wish to save my brother’s life—along with our fractured world.

But if Mathias can pinpoint our location when I teleport with the book, can he also track us if I merely use it?

And if the Anarki find us—weary and wounded—how would I possibly protect Bram and the diary?

I can’t risk either falling into Mathias’s hands any more than I can jeopardize Ice, who’s done everything possible to keep me safe.

I’ll try once we’re someplace more defensible. At least on that, Ice and I agree.

But that opportunity must come soon. If Bram dies, not only do I lose the last of my true family, but the leader holding our resistance together.

The Doomsday Brethren will splinter, the Council will fall to Mathias, and magickind will be torn apart for centuries.

I’ll be alone, homeless, and marked for death.

The weight of responsibility presses down on me like a physical burden. When did my shoulders become the ones to carry the future of our entire kind? When did my personal happiness become so irrelevant to the greater good?

I shove away my resentment. Since I can’t intervene now and Bram can’t wage politics from his sickbed, the responsibility of building a coalition capable of securing the voting bloc to save magickind falls to me, period.

I’m one step removed from the Council, and my only leverage, my only tool to effect the necessary change, lies in a mate my brother would approve of.

So you’re going to let your brother pawn you off on another Privileged prick, even if he has no instinct to mate you, so Bram can secure his power on the Council? Regardless of whether you’re happy?

Ice makes Bram sound cold, unfeeling. But a selfish choice on my part could doom us all.

I settle myself against the downy pillows and close my eyes…

but my thoughts refuse to stop. Bram himself didn’t mate strategically.

He Called to a human who disappeared a handful of hours after capturing the heart of the most sought-after bachelor in magickind.

He didn’t Call to a Council member’s daughter or even a wealthy oligarch’s progeny.

He Called to the woman who appealed to his heart.

Against my will, I resent that I can’t do the same.

A hot current of bitterness floods my chest. Why should Bram get to follow his heart when mine must be chained to political strategy?

For a moment, I allow myself to hate the unfairness of it, to imagine a world where I could choose based on desire rather than duty.

I could freely consider Ice’s call purely on the merits of my feelings.

But that world isn’t mine.

Absently, I nibble on my bottom lip. I’ve met Rye Spencer once.

He’s nice enough, but his touch didn’t send electricity crackling across my skin like Ice’s.

And Sebastian Blackbourne, the arrogant devil, is no man’s pawn.

He’s even less likely to be any woman’s docile mate.

His gaze has never made my knees weak or my core molten.

He’ll take and take, then demand more without imagining why any woman would say no.

Choosing one of those wizards as my mate is a tomorrow problem. Right now, only Bram matters—his health first, then his political position…if he lives long enough. I’m ashamed that I’ve allowed myself to be distracted by Ice’s Call instead of assessing my brother’s condition. Time to remedy that.

Except Ice is likely curled up on the dinky sofa. Not asleep. Does he even have a blanket to warm him on this frigid December night? Despite everything, I can’t stop myself from caring about his comfort.

Slipping from my cozy bed, I prowl the room, looking for a spare quilt.

Nothing, not in the sturdy walnut wardrobe, not in the chest at the foot of the bed.

I can’t leave the man with no blanket on a sofa that’s two miles too short for his big body.

Earlier, I offered him the bed. He scoffed and dismissed me.

Gathering the quilt off the heap of my covers, I drape it over my arm, then creep into the main room.

Firelight licks over Ice’s prone form as he sprawls on his back, his massive frame dwarfing the lumpy sofa.

His neck propped up on the armrest looks most uncomfortable.

His calves and feet hang over the other end.

Once more, I regret my reluctant acceptance of the room’s final spare bed.

“What is it?” He rolls onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow. Even in shadow, his eyes burn like green embers, tracking my every movement.

The desire burning off his body blasts me with scorching heat. My gaze betrays me, dropping to the hard planes of his chest where the robe has fallen open, then lower—to the sizable bulge between his legs. Every nerve ending in my body lights up in response.

“I thought you might be cold.” I sound almost breathless as I unfold the blanket with unsteady hands and spread it over his powerful frame, struggling to cover both his broad shoulders and his feet that hang well past the sofa’s end.